The Nicest Guy That Ever Lived
by Alexis1
Summary: Everyone is on edge in Roswell. And Liz is just about ready to push them over.


The Nicest Guy That Ever Lived  
  
Disclaimer: Don't own. Though if I did the things that would happen….  
  
Rating: Light R.  
  
Authors note: Everyone in Roswell is losing it after Alex is gone. The group is divided and everyone is on the edge. Who's gonna push them over?  
  
  
"Right, here's your Alien Blast, ma'am. Is there anything else I can do for you?" Maria said with a smile.   
The frazzled woman looked up hopefully.   
"Could you just hold Rosa for a moment? Timmy's face is such a mess…" she asked.  
"Sure."   
Maria picked the baby up, supporting her on one hip. The baby had beautiful light brown hair and the most adorable grey eyes. A little rosebud mouth made the baby the cutest thing she'd ever seen.   
It made her forget if only for a minute that Alex was gone. Seeing this tiny baby, so full of life…  
"Hello. Aren't you the cutest little thing?" she crooned to the baby, who grabbed for a strand of Maria's hair, obviously fascinated by the waves.   
"Why can't all people stay as sweet as you?" she sighed.   
  
Michael watched her through the serving hatch, ignoring the orders lying in a pile on the counter. She looked so lovely, holding a baby like she had been born to be a mother. Which she obviously had considering she was a woman but that was beside the point because plenty of women didn't have children but that…  
Great, he thought to himself, I'm babbling just like her.   
She looked so pretty. He briefly let the scene in front of him fade only to be drawn into his own personal mindwarp.   
  
*Maria was lying on a king-size bed, dressed in jeans and a hooded sweater. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, loose tendril framing her face.   
He couldn't see what had captured her attention so he walked over to her and lay behind her and kissed the back of her neck. When he looked at the object of her adoration, he let out a long breath.   
Lying on her back was a beautiful little girl. Her hair was a beautiful light brown, a lot lighter than Liz's but darker than Isabels. Her eyes were open and inquiring. Like her mothers. Her perfect little hands gripped Maria's fingers and her cute little feet waved in the air.  
"Love you…" Maria whispered, turning towards him. He was just leaning down to give her a soft kiss when…*  
  
"MICHAEL!" an irate female voice yelled.   
"Huh?" he stuttered coming out of his trance. He noticed Maria wasn't holding the baby anymore and was now being ogled by a bunch of guys from school.   
"Where were you?" Liz asked.  
"Right here."  
Liz smirked, something unusual for her. But then she'd been doing a lot of things like that recently.  
"Let me guess…you were imagining you and Maria in a happy ending?"  
"Wha…just give me your damn order." Michael muttered, trying to intimidate the petite girl away.   
It would have worked on most. But Liz knew him better than most.   
"Don't even try it Michael. You think your big tough act scares me? Trust me, you don't scare me one bit! And for your information happy endings don't exist."  
"I don't know what you're trying to prove but just quit it! Either give me the order or go fuck Kyle."   
He looked on satisfied when she flinched.   
"You think you're so tough don't you? With your stupid powers!"  
"The stupid powers that saved your life!" He said in a hushed whisper.   
"Big whoop. They also killed the one guy who never let me down."  
"They did not…."he began.  
"Save it. You can say whatever you want. It doesn't change a thing. You four are responsible."  
It was Michael's turn to flinch.   
"Alright Princess Elizabeth. You've had your fun. Now get outta my face."  
"Michael, I haven't even started yet."  
  
"OK, so meet at the Crashdown at 10. Yeah, we're closing early. OK, see ya then."  
Liz hung up. She'd just rung Isabel, with instructions for her to bring Tess to the Crashdown that night. They in turn, she predicted would drag along Max and Kyle. Max would force Michael to come along too. She could easily get Maria, completing the set. Things were all set for them all to have a night of….learning experiences.  
  
Maria had just finished cleaning up when she heard the door to the break room swing behind her.   
"Liz, I'll be there in a minute! You didn't have to come down to drag me upstairs."  
"Its not Liz."   
She turned to find Michael standing behind her.   
"Leave me alone." she ordered, turning back to her task.   
"No."   
"Leave."  
"No."  
She sighed in exasperation.  
"Look. You win. You wanted rid of me and you've got it. Go and find Isabel so you two can live out your perfect destiny. You know…all aliens together. I don't care anymore."  
"I don't believe you."  
"For Christ's sake! Just give it up. You have what you want. I'm not gonna chase around after you anymore. You're free. No attachments. Remember?"   
"Maria listen too me!"  
"No!"   
She grabbed him forcefully and kissed him hard. Harder than they had ever kissed before. It was a kiss full of hurt and anger. With every swipe of her lips, she let him feel exactly what he did to her. Desire, anger, hurt, need, want, lust….intense like bordering on love…oh screw it pure soulmate-esque love. She sent him all the things she hated about him, all the things she loved, all the things that made her want to cry and scream and shout. The last thing she sent him was the worst pain he had ever inflicted. Seeing him walk away. Seeing him give up on what they had. Had as in the past tense.   
She broke away abruptly.   
"You see? Courtney? Pierce? Isabel? Alex? The fact that you're from another planet? Its Mother Nature's way of telling us we are not meant to be. We wouldn't even be together if it weren't for that dumb history project."  
"Maria…"  
"No don't Maria me. You have no right to do that to me anymore. We are not together. We never really were. And as much as it hurts to say it…you never really loved me. That's it Michael."   
With that she walked away leaving a stunned Michael staring after her.  
"What was that about?" Tess asked as Michael finally became aware that he and Maria had been being watched in the final act of their argument.  
"She's pissed."  
"Duh…" Kyle said under his breath before barging past Michael. He could just about still tolerate Tess but being a room full of them just totally made him crazy.  
Max slid into a booth as did Isabel. Tess remained standing and Michael flopped into one of the chairs.   
"This is gonna be a long night…." He remarked.  
  
When Kyle walked into Liz's room he was unprepared for the sight that greeted him. Maria was lying on Liz's bed crying her eyes out while Liz calmly applied a coat of mascara.   
"What's wrong with you?" he asked his ex-girlfriend.  
"Nothing."  
"Nothing? Then why are you letting your best friend cry alone?"  
He slowly rubbed Maria's back, trying to ease some of the tension.  
"She needs to let it out. Then we can reason with THEM and then we can find out who killed Alex."  
"Liz, I want to know too but you can't let others fall by the wayside just because you're too wrapped up in your own problems."  
Slowly, she replaced the wand and screwed it tight, then slipped it into her orderly make up bag.   
"Just taking care of business Kyle."  
  
When the humans re-entered the café sometime later, it was with Kyle with his arm around Maria and Liz leading them out as if in battle. Alex's absence did not go unnoticed.   
"Thank you for coming." Liz intoned, sounding like a robot. "We disagree about what happened but we have to work together if he want to survive. Stronger as a group. Now if anybody here wants to go it alone, leave now."   
Nobody moved a muscle.  
"OK. We need to organise…"  
"Why are you doing this Liz?" Max's soft voice asked, full of hurt.   
"Because I need to know what happened to Alex. I need to know whose fault this is."  
She remained staring at a point just over Tess's shoulder.  
"You seem to have already decided that…" Isabel said, glaring.   
"As I was saying, we need to organise what we're going to do. A, we need to know every detail about the crash. Someone will have to break into the Sheriff's office and the morgue to access their records. Then we need to do some research on the Olsens. We really know nothing about Alex's time in Sweden. Then…"  
"Stop! Just stop it Liz!" Maria yelled, covering her ears as if the noise around her was deafening. "We can't bring him back whatever we do. Nothing can ever bring him back."   
Kyle tugged on her arm until she sat back down, putting her head in her hands.  
"How can you let this go? He was your friend too. Or are you forgetting that now that Michael's being the perfect boyfriend? He's only gonna break your heart. All of them just use us when it's convenient."  
A stunned silence followed.  
"I hate you."   
The voice was so quiet at first nobody could figure out who had spoken.   
It was only when Tess lifted her head to reveal a face contorted with anger.   
"I hate you. Never until this moment have I disliked you so much. You think that you're the only one who wishes Alex were here? Do you know how bad I feel? I have lain awake in my bed every night and wondered if I had done something differently he would still be here. I don't need you to make me feel guilty as well."   
"You didn't know him. He was just another complication, another human attachment that disrupted your precious "destiny" " Liz spat out the word destiny as if saying it left a bad taste in her mouth.   
"Please…let's just keep calm…" Max tried to reason.   
"No I will not keep calm! Alex and Kyle were the only two people who didn't absolutely hate me. He gave me a chance. He leant me his French notes so I wouldn't be too far behind. He bought me a soda when I forgot my purse. The rest of you loathe me. Even now, you all wish I were dead instead of Alex. You know what? So do I."   
Pushing the chair back from the table violently she pushed the door to the backroom and let it swing back.   
"We should stop her from leaving." Michael suggested.   
"No need. All the doors are locked." Liz was back to being stoic.   
Everyone remained seated.   
Maria looked at each of them in turn. Her face showed her pure disgust at all of them.  
"Did none of you notice that one of our closest friends has just walked out of this room practically crying and is probably half way home by now?"  
"But the doors are locked." Max said cluelessly.  
"She's an ALIEN!" Maria sighed totally annoyed at him. Usually his dopey way was endearing. Now it just made her want to strangle him.   
She stood up and followed the petite blonde's footsteps and marched out to the backroom.   
  
She was so totally unprepared for what she saw when she got there she almost walked right back out again. But she knew in her heart that if the situation had been reversed Tess would not leave.   
Tess was sitting on the stairs, her head on her knees and her shoulders shaking violently.   
"Hey." Maria whispered, sitting next to her.   
No response.  
"What you said out there…you were right."  
Tess snorted in a most unladylike way.   
"Real comforting. My suspicions that everyone wanted me dead are confirmed."  
"I didn't mean that. I mean about Liz. She's going overboard."  
Tess, although still hunched over, was now only sniffling.  
"I would have thought you would have been the first one to side with her."  
"No way. " Maria paused, thinking how to explain her thoughts. "When I first learnt about the others I was terrified. I thought Isabel was trying to kill me and Max was trying to lull me into a false sense of security."  
"What about Michael?" Tess inquired, sitting up and wiping her eyes.  
Maria laughed.  
"I remember once, he was looking through the window and just staring at me. I remember telling Liz that he creeped me out. And then Isabel dreamwalked me. She thought I was a total basketcase so she wanted too see if I could be trusted. I was dreaming that her and Max were waaaaaay threatening and that Michael was all James Bond looking. Then he turned into this creature with one thing on his mind and octopus hands. I think I got it right first time…" she mused.  
Maria actually got a laugh out of the alien.  
"The point is, I got over my fear. Thanks to Isabel and the Sheriff, I learnt what it felt like to be scared. He was so intimidating, trying to get me to tell him everything….then I realised…Isabel has a family. She loves them. They love her. How could I hurt them?"  
"So what does that have to do with Liz?"  
"She never got over her fear. She just buried it. The first time she was confronted with it was when Michael was sick. We all had to do this healing thing. Alex was the first to step forward. Even though he had just found out about them he didn't think twice about helping. Riverdog, the guy who helped us learn more about your history, said that Liz had such a deep fear that Max would end up the same way that she would hinder Michael's recovery. So she stood to the side but Max somehow brought her in or something. Michael said he could see her behind him. Then Max broke up with her and it was forgotten. I don't think she's ever realised it before now. Alex's death…its brought her fear back to the surface. She's just acting out Tess. In her heart, she doesn't mean it."  
Tess looked on deep in thought.   
"I think maybe I understand her a little more now."  
Maria smiled.  
"Dr DeLuca to the rescue again!"  
With that the two girls emerged, secretive smiles on their faces.  
Tess and Maria switched places with Maria sandwiched between Isabel and Michael and Tess between Kyle and Max.   
  
"So…maybe we should make a poster or something, asking for information about Alex when he was in Sweden." Liz suggested.   
"How about this one?" Kyle murmured softly, holding up a picture of Alex sitting at the counter of the Crashdown.   
Max smiled softly.  
"I remember when that was taken. Just before he left for Sweden we all came to see him off."  
"And I insisted taking the picture so I wouldn't forget him." Maria sighed wistfully.  
Slowly, Michael reached out his hand under the table and rested it palm up just above her knee.   
She looked down at it first before looking up and meeting his eyes. She placed her own hand on top of his and their fingers interlocked, squeezing slightly to reassure each other.  
Only Tess noticed the silent exchange.  
"Do you remember when we had the part after Michael got out of jail?"  
"Which time?" Isabel quipped.  
Maria reached her other hand out to Isabel, in support. That simple two word sentence was the first glimpse of their Izzy. The girl who laughed at Max when he tripped up nearly sending Liz and a pitcher of ice tea flying through the air. The girl who danced with Alex at the prom. The girl who gave awesome makeovers.   
The girl who was alive.   
The taller girl took it and smiled. It wasn't her Alex smile, it was nowhere near that bright, but it was a smile. And at this point in time it was better than nothing.   
Michael scowled.  
"Ha. Ha."   
"And there was the time that he took me ice skating. I fell down so many times but he wouldn't quit bothering me until I could stand up for a full 10 seconds." Liz said.   
There was a beat that nobody seemed eager to fill.  
"I'm gonna miss Whitman." Kyle whispered, slipping one arm around Tess and one around Liz.   
Their were 6 nods of agreement, as Michael pulled Maria to him, thanking every god he could think of for giving her to him.  
Max put his hand on Isabel's shoulder and all seven of them mourned for their lost friend.   
Alex Charles Whitman. The nicest guy that ever lived.   
  



End file.
